Western end of new pipeline should be complete next year

Friday

Oct 18, 2013 at 6:00 AM

A two-state pipeline project that includes work in St. Joseph County is entering its homestretch.Evidence of the progress is easy to spot at the northeast corner of Silver Street and Heimbach Road in Mendon Township, where the Calgary-based company has maintained a 40-acre pipe yard for materials used in the second phase of the Enbridge 6B pipeline replacement.

Jef Rietsma

A two-state pipeline project that includes work in St. Joseph County is entering its homestretch.Evidence of the progress is easy to spot at the northeast corner of Silver Street and Heimbach Road in Mendon Township, where the Calgary-based company has maintained a 40-acre pipe yard for materials used in the second phase of the Enbridge 6B pipeline replacement.Jennifer Smith, Enbridge spokesperson, said the impending cold weather places added urgency to completion of the task. Enbridge hopes to have all pipe laid and quality-assurance tests completed in the Michigan portion of the pipeline by the end of the year.The target for completion at the western end of the route, in Indiana, is 2014, Smith said.“The process is very repetitive, it’s very precise and every measure is taken to confirm the integrity of the welding and the steel itself,” she said.Smith discussed details of a hydrostatic test, a key quality-assurance trial once the pipeline is in ground. The process involves an X-ray of the pipeline followed by a procedure where water is run through the line for a prolonged period of time at one-and-a-half times the pressure crude oil will eventually pass through the 210-mile route. The entire task is pegged to cost $1.3 billion and will replace a 40-year-old pipeline. Smith said the company was originally going to make modifications at key points along the route, but a full replacement was eventually authorized considering the age of the original pipeline.Fourteen miles of the pipeline pass through St. Joseph County, starting in the northwest corner of Fabius Township, running through a small section in the southeast portion of Flowerfield Township, across all of Park Township and through most of Mendon Township.Smith said a thorough restoration process will take place next year in better weather conditions. She said the pipeline crosses through a vast amount of farmland and the company is committed to leaving the area the same, if not better, than it was before the work started.“The level of restoration is built into the agreement we have with property owners … we know it will take the land a couple years to fully recover,” she said.Other challenges have been placing pipeline under rivers and major roadways, including both lanes of U.S. 131 in Park Township. Smith said the level of expertise to work on the pipeline is critical, especially when it comes to working around rivers and wetlands.On any given day, she said, about 2,000 people are working on the pipeline between the two states.Roughly 110 miles of pipe was stored at the Mendon Township yard, most of it in 72-foot-long sections.Enbridge is leasing property through April 2014 from the Mendon Township landowner.The 36-inch-diameter pipes were transported last summer from a rail yard near the corner of Kilgore and Sprinkle roads in Kalamazoo.Company officials said every pipe segment, which is half an inch thick and weighs more than 13,500 pounds, was tested, inspected and fusion-bonded with an epoxy coating at a Saskatchewan steel mill before being shipped.The current pipeline was at the center of notoriety in 2010 when a leak near a creek in Marshall wound up fouling a significant stretch of the Kalamazoo River with crude oil.The old pipeline will eventually be deactivated but left in place.